Placebos DO work: Bogus pills trigger similar healing process to real drugs

July 20, 2016

Placebos have been shown to work for migraines, toothache and IBS
Parkinson’s patients continued to get relief after switching to placebos
After drugs, body becomes pre-conditioned to expect treatment and reacts
50% of American doctors found to prescribe placebos instead of drugs

David Gardner In Los Angeles For The Daily Mail

Published:
08:43 EST, 20 July 2016

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Updated:
08:43 EST, 20 July 2016

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Scientists have discovered that fake drugs with no apparent pharmaceutical benefit can bring real improvements to patients suffering from common complaints such as migraines.

New studies in the Boston suggest that placebos may causes changes in the body as well as the mind.

Even with patients knowing they are being given a non-medicinal drug substitute they have still reported reduced pain and other symptoms in everyday, debilitating conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome or migraines.

Placebos do work: Drugs with no apparent pharmaceutical benefit can bring real improvements to patients suffering from Parkinson’s, IBS and migraines, studies show

Research is also being carried out to see if similar results can be achieved with cancer-induced tiredness, severe back pain, asthma and sleep disorders.

There is already some evidence that Parkinson’s disease patients who substitute a placebo for their usual medication will continue to get relief because the body has become pre-conditioned to expect a drug and reacts accordingly.

The key to the research is that the placebos often trigger a similar response in the body to the real thing.

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In a study published this week in the journal Nature Medicine, bogus drugs were found to have an effect on the immune system of mice.

‘This is not just making it up in your mind. The placebo effect has a biology,’ said Harvard Professor Ted Kaptchuk, director of the Programme in Placebo Studies and Therapeutic Encounter at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, told the Wall Street Journal.

‘The pathways that we know the placebo effects use are the pathways many significant drugs use,’ he added.

According to a study in the British Medical Journal, about 50 per cent of American doctors surveyed reported regularly prescribing placebos, often without telling their patients exactly what they were getting.

The placebos often trigger a similar response in the body to the real thing, said Professor Ted Kaptchuk, of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

Most used over the counter pain relievers and vitamins and a smaller number gave out saline or sugar pills.

Professor Kaptchuk said the research into the effects of placebos is not new. In 1979, patients with dental pain were given a placebo they were told was a painkiller and about one-third reported suffering less pain.

Parkinson’s disease patients taking part in a study at the University of Maryland in Baltimore are given a placebo after undergoing several rounds of therapy using the drug apomorphine, a common treatment that activates dopamine, a chemical that controls the brain’s reward and pleasure centres.

‘When we use a placebo after an active treatment, the placebo mimics the same action of the active treatment through a mechanism we call pharmacological conditioning,’ Dr Luana Colloca, an associate professor studying the placebo effect in acute and chronic pain, told Nature Journal.

‘A current goal is to reduce opioids to optimise pain management,’ she added.

She said that even when given a placebo, patients reported fewer tremors and less muscle rigidity.